Compared with Yu Li's TV suspension adjustment in November, the news of the establishment of Jiashi has not attracted much attention, after all, ordinary people have no impression of Jiashi under construction.

However, it was Wang Zijun's news that resolved the criticism of the reporter of "Wen Wei Po" made some people who like to read newspapers talk more after dinner.

The one who really felt the pressure was none other than Run Run Shaw. The sudden rise of Golden Harvest has already carved up a part of the Shaw Brothers market, and now two more wireless TV stations have been added to break his monopoly in the TV industry, which is cutting his flesh.

On July 26, 1973, just when Run Run Shaw was thinking about "how to deal with the enemy", Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" and Wang Zijun's "If the Wine Sells Nothing" were released at the same time.

I have to say that there are far more die-hard fans of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong than Wang Zijun. Many people who usually say that they like Wang Zijun have also collectively rebelled at this moment, and they have run into the movie theater where "Enter the Dragon" is screened.

At this time, "If the Wine Sells Nothing" has been released in Taiwan for more than half a month, and both the word of mouth of film critics and the number of box office are all popular. In Taiwan's film industry, which has a strong literary atmosphere, some film critics even called it the most humane and socially responsible Chinese film in the past two decades.

And what about in Hong Kong?

Wang Zijun was completely dumbfounded, there are only 100 movie theaters, and the average attendance rate is only six or seven percent, this is the first time it has been released.

Bruce Lee's side is slightly better, barely full, fighting on Jiahe's homeland, and the canvas released is far more than Wang Zijun's films. It can be said that at the box office at the beginning of the release, Bruce Lee completely defeated Wang Zijun.

At the end of the first day of screening, "Enter the Dragon" had a box office of 143,000 Hong Kong dollars, while "If the Wine Sells Nothing" was only a pitiful 67,000 yuan, which was directly doubled.

Wang Zijun and Lin Qingxia were drinking coffee at Bruce Lee's house, and when they received the information from the movie theater, they looked at Bruce Lee with a wry smile.

Bruce Lee is not easy, although his movie is full at the beginning, but according to the situation returned from the scene, it is far less popular than "Raptors Across the River", and most of the people queuing up to buy tickets are less.

That's a problem.

"Enter the Dragon" far surpasses "Raptors Across the River" in terms of picture and plot, but now the reaction in the cinema scene is much colder than that of "Raptors Across the River".

In history, the Hong Kong box office of "Raptors Across the River" was 5.3 million Hong Kong dollars, while "Enter the Dragon", which is better than "Raptors Across the River" in all aspects, was only 3.3 million.

"Damn, it's a disaster." Wang Zijun scolded casually.

Bruce Lee is also a little helpless, and the cold box office is a big blow to any filmmaker, although this is not a problem with the movie itself.

"Mine is the same, let's forget about the bet between us, it's not interesting to compare." Bruce Lee said.

Wang Zijun rolled his eyes, for Bruce Lee, the box office in Hong Kong is naturally not interesting, the global box office of "Enter the Dragon" is 230 million, and it is still US dollars. At the same time, Bruce Lee completely set off a kung fu boom in Europe and the United States with this film, becoming a veritable international superstar, and wrote the word kung fu into the English dictionary, but Bruce Lee was dead at that time.

But because of Wang Zijun's intervention, Bruce Lee was still alive and well at this time. Wang Zijun is very much looking forward to seeing where Bruce Lee will go in the end.

Bruce Lee, who was rescued from the death line, learned a lesson this time, postponed the time of the new film, and now is leisure, walking, and meditating at home, only doing very simple exercises every day, trying to adjust his chaotic physiological system, and at the same time comprehending the spiritual breakthrough in martial arts.

"Enter the Dragon" was released half a month earlier in Hong Kong than in the United States, and the box office response was satisfactory, which made Zou Wenhuai feel a little chilled and had to spend money to strengthen publicity.

It's a pity that the publicity of "Enter the Dragon" has actually been done to the extreme, and the effect of increasing publicity is not obvious, and the box office is much colder than last year. Zou Wenhuai, who has no choice, can only hope for the United States, but he doesn't get much box office revenue there.

The next day, major entertainment magazines and newspapers reported on the two films, and many newspapers used Bruce Lee's victory over Wang Zijun as a selling point to attract audiences.

Bruce Lee has become an international movie star with "Raptors Across the River", which has always been the pride of Hong Kong people. Because Wang Zijun is not qualified to be compared with Bruce Lee.

But since Wang Zijun and Teresa Teng formed a band, which caused a crazy sensation, they made a big splash at the Cannes Film Festival in France, and seemed to have become an international director for a while.

As a result, those media who were worried about the lack of news suddenly found a topic, and from time to time they compared Wang Zijun and Bruce Lee, and faintly compared Taiwan with Hong Kong. In this comparison, Hong Kongers get a sense of superiority, while the media gets sales.

This is not a comparison at all, Wang Zijun is purely regarded as a stepping stone for Hong Kong people to tout Bruce Lee.

Just a few days before the release of their new film, many media discussed it, and most of them thought that Bruce Lee would win. As soon as the box office of the first day was announced, the media cheered, and sure enough, our Hong Kong movies are still powerful.

is contrary to the public's concept, and the film critics unanimously support Wang Zijun, praising Wang Zijun as a hard-working filmmaker.

The famous film critic Bai Sheng wrote in the Shaw Brothers' film magazine "Southland Film": "I went to the midnight show to see "Enter the Dragon", which was full of violence and **, a fast food commercial film shot entirely to earn box office, without any value......"

"Southern Film" is the propaganda magazine of Shaw Brothers, and naturally it wants to vigorously criticize the main film of the enemy Golden Harvest, and "If the Dried Wine Sells Nothing" has become a powerful weapon, the article continued, "And Wang Zijun's "If the Dry Wine Sells Nothing" is very humane, the plot is touching and tear-jerking, taking into account the literary surname and the ...... of the watchable surname"

"Southern Movie" helped Wang Zijun to promote it for free, the purpose was to fool people out of the movie theater where "Enter the Dragon" was released, purely to harm others and not benefit themselves. It can be seen that the struggle between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest has reached a white-hot point.

Wang Zijun's company only releases a few movies in Hong Kong a year, and the impact on Hong Kong film companies is not great, but Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers usually have countless garbage films, and the box office competition between them can be described as fierce.

Seeing the difficulties of "Southern Movie", Golden Harvest's "Golden Harvest Movie" couldn't stay idle, and began to vigorously tout Bruce Lee's international status, as well as the film's big investment, excellent pictures and lenses. He also insinuated that the people of Shaw Brothers are dirt buns, so they will shoot some garbage films, and even the yellow croaker dishes used in movies are made of plastic, and Shaw is a cheating grande who doesn't know how to appreciate commercial blockbusters at all.

Regardless of the open and secret struggle between Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers, Yishu is amazing, writing on the film and television version of "Ming Pao": "For me, "Raptors Across the River" can only be regarded as a good-looking commercial film, and the discussion of money, life, and emotions in "If the Wine Sells Nothing" is really suitable for Hong Kong under the trauma of the stock market crash. I dare to guarantee that if you only compare the Hong Kong box office, "If the Wine Sells Nothing" will win in the end, because the current living conditions of Hong Kong people do not need bloody killings to release pressure, but to use emotions to heal themselves. ”

Yishu is very rational when she writes novels, but she is very emotional when she makes comments and behaves, and many people laugh dumbly when they watch her films, thinking that this eldest lady is full of guns again.

You must know the biggest difference between Hong Kong films and Taiwanese films, that is, one is the market film culture and the elite film culture. In addition, "If the Wine Sells Nothing" is filmed in Taiwan, so everyone may admit that this film can beat Bruce Lee in Taiwan, but in Hong Kong, it is definitely the majority of action movies, as for literary films, to hell with it.

The little people go to the cinema just to have fun, who wants to use their brains and hurt their feelings to ponder literary films? Yishu is a hypocritical cultural person, a beautiful writer, what she likes is very petty bourgeoisie and elegant, as well as people, and thinks that ordinary civilians also have the same opinion as her, which is purely ridiculous.

However, the situation in the next two weeks has left many people scratching their heads, "Enter the Dragon" began to fall back at the box office after being sold out for a week, while the attendance rate of "If the Wine Sells Nothing" has been steadily rising little by little, very slowly, until two weeks after the release, it actually began to be full, and had to increase the number of theaters.

As the number of moviegoers increased, people began to sing the lame Hokkien dialect "If the wine is dry", talking about the heroine of the movie, Lin Qingxia, and Xiao Lizhu's movie soundtrack records also began to sell well.

The media followed the situation and also increased their coverage of "If the Wine Sells Nothing". For a time, "If the Wine Is Dry" completely overwhelmed "Enter the Dragon".

Lin Qingxia's fame in Hong Kong has soared, and she even overtook Zhao Yazhi, who is a household name in Hong Kong because of "Shanghai Tang".

What's going on?

This kind of hot and cold situation is usually only found in the works of directors who are not well-known, or movies that are not hyped up.

But Wang Zijun and his movies are not unknown!

Moreover, "Raptors Across the River" invested more than 800,000 US dollars, which is much larger than the literary film "If the Wine Sells Nothing". Its plot is exciting, the picture is hot, the structure is compact, and it is joined by international stars, and the publicity is in place, this film is also a boutique in the United States, how can it be suppressed by a Taiwanese literary film?

I can't figure it out, I can't see through it, this is the opinion in the hearts of countless people.

The strange box office situation of "If the Wine Sells Nothing" immediately attracted the attention of all parties, and people were sent to find out. You must know that the Hong Kong film market has been sluggish in the past two or three months, and everyone is trying to find ways to increase box office revenue, and Wang Zijun's movie has a strange box office, which seems to make them see some possibility.

There must be a reason for any bizarre situation. If the reason for this is found out, and this factor can be replicated as a means to slow down the box office...... That's tantamount to having a magic weapon to increase the box office in the off-season of the movie.

This magic weapon Shaw Brothers has found one, and that is to shoot Fengyue.

But making that kind of film has a bad reputation after all, and it is not a long-term plan, so the strange box office situation of "If the Wine Sells Nothing" makes them can't help but want to get to the bottom of it.

Wang Zijun was also confused about this, thinking that I didn't do anything, but how could the growth of the box office be so weird?

At this time, he had returned to Taiwan and was planning the company's new film, so he couldn't go to the scene to see what was going on, so he could only ask Ni Kuang to help him see the situation.

When he arrived at a movie theater near his home, he found that the people queuing up to buy tickets here had been waiting for a long time, and the movie theater opposite was showing "Enter the Dragon", where only half of the people who bought tickets were here.

This is a stark inverse contrast to the premiere of the two films, as if they have just been replaced.

Not only Ni Kuang, but Run Run Shaw personally sent Fang Yihua over to find out what is so greasy about "If the Wine Sells Nothing".

The grievances between Wang Zijun and Shaw Brothers only stayed in last year's box office competition, after all, Wang Zijun is an outsider, not Shaw's main enemy. Shaw's big enemy is Zou Wenhuai, the judge who cultivated international superstar Bruce Lee, this time Wang Zijun can fight with Golden Harvest, and Shaw's cinema also makes a contribution. Otherwise, if Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers refuse to screen Wang Zijun's movie at the same time, they will definitely not be qualified to challenge "Enter the Dragon" by relying on some scattered theaters.

Last year, Zou Wenhuai borrowed Wang Zijun's knife to kill Run Run Shaw, but this year it was the other way around, and Wang Zijun became Run Run Shaw's gun again. Otherwise, Bai Muyang is not a fool, and he has to arrange for his own film to be released on the same day as a blockbuster like "Enter the Dragon", which is naturally a private transaction made in order to win over Shaw Brothers' theaters.

Fang Yihua doesn't appear in public much, so few people recognize her.

At this time, Fang Yihua frowned and looked at the long line of ticket buyers, and after joining it, he asked the person in front of her: "Why are there so many people?" Is this movie that good? ”

The person in front of her was actually a fifty or sixty-year-old aunt, and before she could speak, a young man next to her said, "Of course it looks good, otherwise how could I bring the whole family?" I've watched both of them twice. ”

Fang Yihua was taken aback, only to find that a family of five in front of him came to buy tickets collectively.

"Isn't 'Enter the Dragon' better? and starring Bruce Lee. Why do you all come to watch "If the Wine Sells Nothing"? Fang Yihua continued to ask.

The aunt said, "What's the point of calling back and forth?" My little daughter-in-law next door said that this movie is about honoring the elderly and teaching people to be human, which is good-looking! ”

Fang Yihua asked back and forth, but didn't have any clue, so he had to buy a ticket to enter the theater. As for what the aunt said, she thinks it's complete nonsense, if a film that teaches people to be a person can get a good box office, then everyone should make educational documentaries.

(To be continued)